As a child she learnt from her father the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi which did not abandon her when, after receiving her degree in law and a masters from Oxford, she became a human rights lawyer and the director of Sarvodaya, the largest voluntary organisation in Sri Lanka. At the World Social Agenda in Padua she spoke to us about her country’s changes and, in particular, about the new role of women, often forced to emigrate to maintain their families. In her opinion, social problems should be a priority for the government which, on the contrary, is too busy allocating defence budgets. In the north and east of the country, in fact, it is feared that the country will revert to civil war between the government army, representative of the Singhalese majority, and separatist rebels of the Tamil Tigers. In recent weeks the violence has increased, causing many victims, including civilians, and this is creating obstacles to the volunteers who are working on reconstruction in the aftermath of the tsunami. Charika is also committed on this front: to respond to the psychological needs of the victims of the tidal-wave, she has created the programme for psycho-spiritual recovery and she collaborates with the Vishva Niketan peace centre, where, through meditation and following the example of the Mahatma, she helps to resolve interior and exterior conflicts. 
 
What is the role of women in Sri Lanka?
It is very important because thousands of women contribute to the country’s economy. Over 100 thousand work at home in the textiles and clothing industry, and 140 thousand in the Middle East, from where they send remittances that are second place in the scale of incomes coming from foreign trade. Domestic work, and the upbringing and education of the children, however, are still their responsibility. Thus, recently they have found themselves faced with a great challenge: they must fulfil their duties as wives and mothers, and at the same time they must work outside the house to maintain the family. Singhalese society is changing. Even the help that used to arrive from the women’s relatives is drying up, because the enlarged family, in the past united under a single roof, is now splitting up and the children, who are often left alone, can easily fall victim to abuses. These are the effects of globalisation which, in Sri Lanka and in the rest of the southern hemisphere, is not balanced, as it is in the west, by a solid social welfare system. And the women pay a high price, being subjected to great stress.
 
How can these social changes be made less hard on women?
The government could, for example, help the women who have emigrated to the Middle East by giving assistance to the relatives who are left to look after their children. These children, without their mothers, often suffer from behavioural disorders, and rarely do well at school.  The government has a debt towards those women who have emigrated abroad, who in the last eight years have produced more income than the authorities have managed to obtain with the privatisation of several institutions. In order to guarantee the safety of this work force, the ministry must monitor emigration from Sri Lanka, registering those who leave the country. Remember that, in the last year alone in the Middle East, many of our emigrants have undergone violence and abuses, while 124 have actually been killed.
 
How are the men reacting to this change in roles?
In a patriarchal society, such as that of Sri Lanka, the men are obliged to look after the family because the women are far away. The government must help them face these new tasks, first and foremost the education of the children. Of a population of 9.4 million people, some 6.2 million are children and teenagers below 18 years of age. I believe, on the other hand, that the government’s priorities in this moment are not social problems, but others, such as military commitment. 
 
Are the conditions of the women and children worsening in the conflict zones between the Singhalese army and the Tamil rebels?
In the zones controlled by the Tamils in the east and north, where the religion is prevalently Hindu and the conflict is being fought out, women have less freedom. In the Buddhist centre and south, on the other hand, they can go out to work without problems. War, then, complicates things further. Fifty thousand children live in war-torn areas, where the rebels recruit minors. Poverty strikes the whole country, but it is more extreme in the north-east, demonstrating that in Sri Lanka the resources are allocated unevenly. The rate at which children abandon school is also high in the east and south; that is, in the districts which are most ignored by the government, which is only interested in increasing the defence budget.
 
Which serves to fight the rebels, but also to bomb zones inhabited by civilians, as has been happening recently….
The situation today in the north-east is a genuine disaster. I do not know how the country can emerge from this situation. The government has never had a national agenda that takes the overall situation into account. In the era of independence from the English, the country was ruined by party politics. Before the elections all the parties promise equality to the different religious and ethnic groups, but once they come to power all their promises are broken. Every party thinks only of itself and lacks the strong leadership necessary to see beyond their own interests. The new president Mahinda Rajapakse has said that he will be the leader of all the peoples of Sri Lanka, but only to create a good impression of himself. 
 
Nationalism, which has always dominated politics in your country, is hard to fight …
Local means of communication have exaggerated the role of nationalism, but the population rejects this type of extremism. There are many small Tamil, Singhalese, and Christian groups working together, but this doesn’t make the news. I believe that the majority of the population has understood that extremism is not a good solution for the country. The political candidates often do not respect the will of the people, and by now have lost their trust. They are so resigned to their fate that they do not even question the choices of their leaders. In Trincomalee, scene of the latest violence, Tamils and Singhalese have always lived together in harmony. It is wrong to speak of an ethnic conflict, the reasons for this war lie elsewhere. Neither side trusts he other, so how can they build a dialogue? As happens in personal relations, more sensitivity in understanding the other’s point of view is necessary, but I don’t know how sensitive the army and government can be towards the rebels and vice versa. There is still a lot of work to be done on this terrain.

 

You are also helping the victims of the tsunami. Has the recent violence in the north-east slowed down the rebuilding?
Yes, of course. The post-tsunami reconstruction would be an enormous job in a peaceful atmosphere, never mind in a war-torn area. Here there is no doubt that the tidal wave has aggravated the situation. That isn’t to say, all the same, that we should believe what the newspapers are saying. Things are moving onwards and the communities are working side by side, in spite of the political problems. I would like to speak of a recent experiment I made to measure the perception of the situation as regards human rights among the people. Given the possibility to choose from among three colours, the people from the north, where the situation is the worst, indicated the colour that signifies positivism, whereas those from the south did the opposite. It is encouraging to see that the people who are worse off are more hopeful. We should listen more carefully to the common people and give them a greater role in the peace process.
 
And meditation helps to do that?
In Sri Lanka meditation is part of our culture, considering that 69 per cent of the population is Buddhist. Our conception is that it is possible to resolve your external conflicts only if you have resolved your internal conflicts. Our meditation centre for peace helps in the understanding of ourselves and others. It is not aimed, furthermore, only at Buddhists or at the Singhalese: anyone can open his heart and mind to understand and respect others, it is in our nature. So we are trying to create a network of ‘compassionate minds’ around the country, to facilitate dialogue between the different ethnic and religious communities who hold human values as their common dominators.